Using tissue engineering technology, mineralized connective tissues such as bone, cartilage, or dental pulp may be repaired or regenerated using a combination of living cells, engineered materials, and biochemical and physio-chemical factors. An engineered connective tissue may be grown in vitro on a matrix material in a culture seeded with connective tissue progenitor cells, such as stem cells. Alternatively, the matrix material may be inserted into an organism in a location where the connective tissue is needed, such as within an area of injured bone tissue, and the surrounding cells may infiltrate and attach to the matrix to form mineralized connective tissue.
A key element of the formation of these engineered tissues is the composition of matrix material, which acts as a physical support for the attachment and development of the connective tissue cells. To date, materials such as polyglycolic acid, combinations of polyglycolic acid and polylactic acid, polyethylene glycol, chitosan, and alginate have been used with limited success as scaffolds in bone, cartilage or dental pulp regeneration. Typically, only a relatively small fraction of the progenitor cells seeded into these existing matrix materials survives the initial contact with the matrix material, possibly because the progenitor cells of mineralized connective tissues are highly sensitive to the surrounding chemical environment, including the particular molecules forming the exposed surface of the matrix material.
As such, there exists a need for an improved matrix material capable of providing a physical support for the attachment and growth of mineralizing connective tissue progenitor cells, in which the matrix material incorporates molecules associated with typical connective tissue biology growth or repair. Such a matrix material may be used for dental pulp, bone and periodontium repair as well as for the formation of bioengineered bone tissue for transplant.